Monday, February 12, 2018

“Since the mantra of
running universities ‘like a business’ began
in earnest in the 1980s, the cost of attending college has
skyrocketed, far outpacing inflation and wage growth. The only thing that’s
kept up, it seems, is students’
grades. All across academia — public or private, large or small, ‘highly
selective’ or open enrollment — students are receiving much better marks and
paying much, much more. And that’s not a coincidence.

“The same forces that
have been pushing
up the cost of a two- or four-year degree have also helped propel
median grades so high they border on meaningless. Most instructors don’t want
to give out A’s like candy. Most students aren’t doing A work. Yet here we are,
with an A the modal grade in higher ed.

“What happens when
everyone’s grades are great? When students become graduates and graduates
become applicants (for employment, for post-graduate studies, and so on), how
is one 3.9 GPA differentiated from another?

“The brand name, of
course. Prestige and ‘pedigree’ (a term used uncomfortably often these days in
academia) dictate which résumés are worth pulling out of the enormous pile that
a poor job market inevitably creates. The imprimatur of the most expensive, most
exclusive, and most elite institutions opens doors that academic performance
alone cannot.

“The cachet of the
university brand name has always mattered. But when so many students have a
transcript with stellar grades, the university logo becomes that much more
important. What is more, factors independent of grades become more important as
well, namely standardized test scores that can be boosted by throwing money at
expensive prep courses.

“Two market-driven
factors in particular are responsible for watering down the evaluation and
grading process: concerted efforts to reduce costs (read: breaking faculty and
instructors as a labor force) and the need to attract customers (students) in
an increasingly competitive market.

The Labor Problem:

“It’s no secret that full-time, tenured or tenure-eligible,
benefit-earning employment is on the decline in US higher education. Temporary
faculty on short-term contracts have joined graduate students — dependent on
the good graces of their departments for meager funding — in the ‘flexible’
labor pool. Across the country, the bulk of instruction is now done by people
with no job security whatsoever, increasingly heavy workloads, and low
salaries.

“For administrators at
universities where business isn’t booming — and declining enrollments are
a problem at many institutions — adjunct
laboris ideal. If enough students sign up to justify offering a course,
adjuncts can be paid pennies on the dollar to teach it. If enrollment falls,
the university can simply drop its contingent workforce.

“This isn’t news to
anyone who has been paying attention. The anticipated surge in university
hiring as Baby Boomers retired has not materialized, largely because tenured,
full-time faculty positions can be filled much more cheaply with multiple
adjuncts paid piecemeal — no benefits, no commitment, no research funding, no
promise of employment beyond the day to day.

“All of this is made
possible by an oversupply of labor. Universities with PhD- and
MA-granting programs have an incentive to accept large numbers of graduate
students who can be lassoed into teaching courses, grading, and doing research
grunt work on the cheap. The bleak non-academic job market ensures that more
PhDs than any academic job market could reasonably absorb into good jobs are
minted in any given year.

“University
administrators, many of whom come to higher education with experience in the
private sector, are emboldened: how small of a salary can we offer? How
long can we go without giving raises? How many courses can we wring out of a
single adjunct for one semester of meager pay?

“The ethos in the
academic job market today is, ‘Someone will be desperate enough to do it.’ Some
PhD holder has been unemployed long enough and is desperate enough to accept a
high workload, nine-month term position for $22,000. And they’re almost always
right. Someone is that desperate. The process guarantees that.

The Rational Teacher:

“Some individuals cannot
help throwing their entire heart and soul into the classroom. Even if they’re
underpaid and overworked, shuffled from job to job with no security or
bargaining power, they take an intense professional interest in the success of
each and every student. These people exist. I have seen them, and I admire
them.

“The vast majority of
people, though, respond to the incentives before them like any economist worth
her Rational Choice salt would predict. Overworked, temporary faculty try to
avoid piling even more work on themselves. Every hour of work they add to their
teaching responsibilities takes one hour away from the research and publication
that are needed to get full-time work in the future.

“I apologize if this is
a ‘there is no Santa Claus’ moment, but here’s a secret about teaching in the ‘run
like a business’ university: students are far less demanding on one’s time if
they receive high grades. They rarely send panicked emails, show up to office
hours, or file complaints with higher-ups when they’re carrying an A or B.

“If that outrages you,
put yourself in the following position. You are getting $2,100 to teach a
sixteen-week course with fifty students, many of whom might be deficient in
basic academic skills. For that princely sum you have four hours per week in
class plus additional office hours. Counting prep time (one to two hours for
each hour in the classroom) and grading, you are making somewhere below minimum
wage over the course of a semester. And much of the student work you receive,
depending on the institution, can be described charitably as less than stellar.

“You have two choices.
You can correct every writing mistake, leave extensive feedback that the
student may not read, and give the kind of low grade that screams, ‘Please see
me, we need to talk.’ Or you can give the papers grades they do not properly
deserve and be done with it. But either way, choose quickly — you have to make
your decision in the one hour you have for grading between your afternoon
adjunct gig and your night school course at the tech college.

Recruitment and Retention:

“The pressure to inflate
grades comes from more than the incentive structure of employment. More degrees
are being granted than ever, in part because there are more institutions
granting degrees than ever. Student-starved universities are aglow with the
buzzword ‘retention,’ emphasizing that the number one goal is to create an
environment in which students remain enrolled. In one sense this is positive
and useful — encouraging faculty to intervene when students show signs of
stress, depression, or academic struggles is essential.

“It would be naïve,
however, not to recognize the bottom-line motives behind the retention push for
what they are: an unsubtle reminder that tuition-paying bodies are in high
demand, and students who fail out of school cease paying tuition. Faculty know
that high DFW (Drop, Fail, or Withdraw) rates attract attention from their
superiors — and not the good kind of attention.

“What happens when this
scramble to attract ‘customers’ leads universities to accept students who may
lack the skills necessary to succeed in college? Of course there is pressure to
retain those same students. How? Grade inflation helps, but retention is an
expensive endeavor all around: more administrators, more resources needed on
campus (tutors, learning assistance programs, remedial courses, study skills
seminars, and other institutional support), and more reminders that failure to
maintain a certain enrollment level imperils the financial future. And in the
end, students pay more as faculty labor is squeezed harder. Rinse and repeat.

The Easy Way Out:

“When grades are
inflated, everyone appears to win. Students are happy for obvious reasons.
Administrators are happy that students are staying enrolled. Teachers are happy
their already hefty workloads aren’t being increased further. Yet the
collective outcome — contra econ 101 — is suboptimal.

“As the number of
bachelor’s degrees awarded rises, employers can demand additional credentials
(which universities are only too happy to offer at eye-watering prices). The
only ones who benefit are those who can afford to distinguish themselves from
the pack of three-point-something GPAs by buying costly elite credentials.

“American meritocracy
was always an illusion. But if it’s fading now in academia, the culprit is not
affirmative action or ‘cultural Marxism,’ as the Right would have it. It’s the
commodification of education” (The Fruits of Commodification by Ed Burmila).

Ed Burmila has taught political science at both public and
private universities.

Teacher/Poet/Musician

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A writer must “know and have an ever-present consciousness that this world is a world of fools and rogues… tormented with envy, consumed with vanity; selfish, false, cruel, cursed with illusions… He should free himself of all doctrines, theories, etiquettes, politics…” —Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?). “The nobility of the writer's occupation lies in resisting oppression, thus in accepting isolation” —Albert Camus (1913-1960). “What are you gonna do” —Bertha Brown (1895-1987).